Better Cloud Security Means Getting Back to Basics
Securing the cloud isn’t rocket science – it just requires a little extra
knowledge. While it’s tempting to think of the cloud as a new frontier in
computing (and, in some ways, it is), cloud security solutions have been
around for almost as long as the cloud itself. The trouble is that most
organizations don’t know how they should think about cloud security in the
first place. ... A good starting point for many organizations is simply
evaluating how effective their existing cloud security is. It isn’t enough to
implement security solutions – even if they’re the right solutions. It’s also
important to know that they are functioning as intended. Today’s organizations
have more testing and validation tools at their fingertips than ever, and
conducting breach and attack simulation, automated red teaming, and other
exercises can lay bare where vulnerabilities and inefficiencies exist. Recent
testing reveals that the basic security suites offered by the leading cloud
providers are not enough to detect all – or even most – attack activity,
highlighting the areas where organizations need to implement new protections
and providing insight into what additional solutions may be necessary.
Cloud Waste Management: How to Optimize Your Cloud Resources
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To better understand cloud waste, we need to understand the iron triangle of
project management, which states that there is always a tradeoff between
speed, quality, and cost. If you want to deliver a quality product/feature
quickly, it will cost you more. Businesses are always trying to innovate and
deliver continuous value to their customers. Often, it means putting pressure
on the delivery teams to improve time to market. As an effect, there is the
over provisioned capacity of resources; multiple resources that were
provisioned to validate theory or concept were not deleted as the teams moved
on either delivering the accepted solutions or to another project assignment.
This is one of the major factors of cloud waste. ... Since you pay for each
resource provisioned in the cloud, managing cloud waste becomes critical, as
it directly impacts your business’s bottom line. CFOs and finance teams
struggle to manage the forecast and budget for cloud spend as they never know
what capacity is wasted in the cloud, and there is no good way to review it
regularly.
Campus NaaS: Transforming Enterprise Networking
The flexibility of the NaaS model allows businesses to experiment with new
technologies and use cases without the risk of large, upfront investments in
hardware and expertise. This is particularly valuable as emerging technologies
like AI and edge computing become more prevalent in enterprise environments.
... The potential benefits of Campus NaaS are significant and organizations
must carefully evaluate potential NaaS providers. Standards-based solutions
ensure interoperability between different NaaS components and service
providers allowing businesses to seamlessly integrate NaaS solutions from
various vendors without compatibility issues. Security capabilities, and
long-term roadmaps should also be considered. Campus NaaS is poised to play a
pivotal role in shaping the future of enterprise networking, enabling
businesses to build the agile, high-performance foundations needed to thrive
in an increasingly digital world. As the technology continues to evolve and
mature, we can expect to see even more innovative use cases and deployment
models emerge, further cementing the role of Campus NaaS as a cornerstone of
modern enterprise IT strategy.
Applying Security Everywhere – How to Prioritise Risks Across Multiple Platforms
For IT architects and security teams, the joint challenge here is actually one
of the oldest ones in IT – knowing what you have. Getting an accurate
inventory of all your software assets and components is a hard task on one
platform, let alone across internal datacenter deployments, web applications,
public cloud implementations and modern cloud-native applications. Keeping
this inventory up to date is harder still, given how much change will take
place over time across the entire application estate. Alongside this
inventory, there are other factors to consider. Not all applications are
created equal, and an issue in an internal web application that is used by a
few people every month will not be as important as a critical vulnerability in
a business application that is responsible for generating revenue every day.
Yet both of these applications may have a flaw, and alerts sent to request
fixes or updates get made. Internal processes and workflows will also affect
the situation. While security teams might spot potential issues in an
application or software component like an API, they will not be responsible
for making the change themselves.
Attempting Digital Transformation? Try Embracing Team Resistance
Resistance to transformation has several causes, Dewal says. First off, many
logistics professionals already feel slammed, and don’t welcome the idea of
new work. “It can feel like an add-on, creating competing priorities,” she
says. Then there’s a fear-based resistance to the perceived complexity of the
new tasks involved. “It’s too complex and we don’t have the right skill sets
to be able to execute on them,” she says, describing this mindset.
“Collectively, let’s call it the fear of failure, of getting it wrong.”
Finally, there’s the familiar human tendency to prefer sticking with the
status quo. “That can hide variations underneath it,” Dewal says. “Sometimes
the team is not even sure why the transformation is needed. Sometimes, they
feel like they’re not getting enough support in terms of executing it.”
Further, the survey dug into two types of resistance – productive and
unproductive. Productive resistance is the type that comes from on-the-ground
knowledge and expertise that relates to the implementation itself. ... Leaders
who avoided a top-down, change-or-die approach, and instead focused on
communication and collaboration, had much better chance of success, the survey
found.
How leading CISOs build business-critical cyber cultures
In information security, where risk is widespread, attacks are becoming
increasingly sophisticated, and so much is on the line, one defining
attributes of successful CISOs is their courage. The good news is, courage is
a muscle that can be developed just like any other. It’s also a mindset. The
CISOs on this panel described various internal motivators that keep them in
the game, resilient, and adaptable, even in the face of daunting challenges.
They made it clear that it’s a lot easier to be courageous when you’re driven
by a love for what you do and maintain a clear line of sight to the impact
you’re making. One of the common threads is their focus on “moments of truth,”
those points of contact between cybersecurity and various stakeholders.
Leaders who are intentional about this find they’re better able to see around
corners and show up more strategically as business enablers. Rodgers says it’s
a lesson she learned in the early days of her career when she worked on a help
desk. Fielding complaints all day takes its own kind of courage. “But the
beauty of it is, you get to know people and how they work,” she says. “I got
to a point where I could anticipate what they were going to want, so I started
proactively providing those things. ...”
How passkeys eliminate password management headaches
There are several usability challenges that could affect the adoption of
passkeys. Key among them is compatibility, as passkeys may not work on
outdated operating systems or older devices. Bypassing the technical
roadblocks, user resistance is often the reason for a failure to adopt new
technology such as passkeys. After all, users have been leveraging passwords
since the early 1960’s. Emphasizing training and education on how to provision
passkeys is essential to adoption, as registration could be challenging for
non-tech-savvy users. It may be best to start with small groups or departments
to address unique challenges within the organization’s diverse culture and
educate users. Organizations are starting to adopt passkeys to enhance
security and optimize productivity, and as with any new implementation, there
will be challenges. Passkey implementation should begin with top-level
leadership as early adopters, which will help employees buy in and ensure a
smooth transition from traditional passwords to passkeys. Upfront investment
in planning, and creating robust policies and processes, will be critical to
the implementation’s success.
Six Common Digital Transformation Challenges
Aligned leadership helps in allocating resources efficiently, prioritizing
initiatives that drive the most value, and mitigating risks associated with
digital transformation efforts. Clear, consistent communication from aligned
leaders also builds trust and motivates teams to adapt to new paradigms.
Ultimately, leadership alignment serves as the backbone of successful digital
transformation by driving coherent strategies and fostering an environment
conducive to innovation and agility. Effective communication is paramount,
with transparent discussions about goals, challenges, and expected outcomes.
Additionally, establishing cross-functional teams can help integrate diverse
perspectives, facilitating smoother transitions during technology adoption. By
embedding these practices into the organizational fabric, leaders can drive
successful digital transformation while maintaining strategic coherence.
Addressing resistance to change and fostering a digital mindset among leaders
is pivotal in navigating this digital transformation challenge. Resistance
often stems from a fear of the unknown and a reluctance to abandon established
processes.
Why Can’t Automation Eliminate Configuration Errors?
The emergence of configuration intelligence changes the game in several ways.
First, it means that anyone tasked with maintaining configurations can save a
lot of time and trouble that used to involve manual, tedious but cognitively
intense tasks like reading through YAML manifests or config files to identify
tiny errors. Yes, some tools existed to do this before, but they mostly
functioned more like “linters,” spotting obvious syntax errors. By simplifying
the process, time to manually maintain configs is drastically reduced. ... The
lack of detailed expertise has been a traditional problem of IaC products,
which struggle to keep up with configuration recommendations across the dozens
of software applications and infrastructure components they manage and
automate. The lack of detailed configuration expertise also creates a cadre of
in-house experts, who become key sources of institutional memory — but also
major risks. When your load-balancing guru walks out the door to take another
job, then everything they know that’s not clearly documented goes out the door
too.
Enterprise spending on cloud services keeps accelerating
“Enterprises are also choosing to house an ever-growing proportion of their
data center gear in colocation facilities, further reducing the need for
on-premise data center capacity. The rise of generative AI technology and
services will only exacerbate those trends over the next few years, as
hyperscale operators are better positioned to run AI operations than most
enterprises,” he wrote. Dinsdale told me the workloads staying on-premises
tend to be workloads that are either very complex and cannot easily be
transitioned, are focused on highly sensitive data, are governed or influenced
by regulatory issues, or are highly predictable and can be managed
economically on premise. Enterprises worldwide are spending around $100
billion per year on their own data center IT hardware and associated
infrastructure software, which has held flat for the last several years/ By
comparison, enterprises are now spending $80 billion per quarter on cloud
services; not to mention another $65 billion per quarter on SaaS. “And those
cloud and SaaS numbers are growing like gangbusters,” he said.
Quote for the day:
"The whole point of getting things
done is knowing what to leave undone." -- Lady Stella Reading
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